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With realignment apparently dead and any diplomatic process with the Palestinians stagnant, some voices inside the EU are calling for the three preconditions to talks with Hamas to be "revisited," The Jerusalem Post has learned. These voices, according to European officials, are not advocating dropping the three conditions - ending terrorism, accepting previous agreements and recognizing Israel - but rather staggering them so an opening is created for talks with the Palestinian Authority. EU begins paying aid to Palestinians "No one is questioning the need for the three conditions," a senior European diplomatic source said. "But maybe if you cannot...

Mosad fails to kill Hamas chief in Syria: sources GAZA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- The external Israeli security intelligence service, better know as Mosad, has failed to assassinate Damascus-based Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, sources in the movement revealed Wednesday. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, were quoted bya Palestinian independent news agency as saying that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) knew about the Israeli attempt to kill Meshaal through a Western intelligence security service. They added that several Mosad agents arrived in Damascus in mid-July during the Israeli military offensives on Lebanon, disguising as foreign relief volunteers...

Saturday, February 25, 2006Iran, Hamas, and the Threat of Nuclear Holocaust The front page of the Arabic website of the military wing of Hamas, the Ezzedeen alQassam Brigades, features an animated graphic at the top on the right hand column. It's a black rectangle with a red Star of David. The Jewish star shatters with a nuclear explosion. This graphic is notably missing from the English language website. Only the Jerusalem Post and a few pro-Israel blogs found this particularly newsworthy. Interestingly enough this graphic appeared on the exact same day Iran offered to fund the Hamas-lead Palestinian government. For...

Sunday, February 19, 2006The Correct Response To Hamas One of CNN's world news headlines today reads: Israel PM rules out Hamas contacts. The implication is that this sort of Israeli action is a bad thing, a deterrent to some sort of illusive peace. Quite the contrary. Prime Minister Olmert correctly states: ...the Palestinian Authority is, in effect, becoming a terrorist authority. Israel will not agree to that. Israel will not compromise with terror and will continue to fight it with all its might. However, we have no intention of harming the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. Israel will not...

Sep. 25, 2004 17:49 | Updated Sep. 26, 2004 20:49 Mashaal: Hamas is in state of alert By ASSOCIATED PRESS CAIRO, Egypt Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, whose group sends suicide bombers into Israel, knows that Israel has him targeted again. And the leader of the Damascus-based political bureau of Hamas is taking no chances. "We are in a state of alert and vigilance," he told The Associated Press this week during a visit to Cairo from his home base in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Since the double Hamas suicide bombing on August 31 in the southern...

Khaled Mashaal, who has emerged as the paramount figure in Hamas following the assassination of Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi by Israel, is a hardline militant who favours a military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Damascus-based Mashaal, head of Hamas' political bureau, said after Rantissi's death yesterday in an airstrike in Gaza City that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was seeking to "eliminate" Hamas, while insisting that the Islamic group "will not stop ... as this is the price of liberation." "Select a leader for the movement in Gaza to replace our brother, martyr and fighter Abdel-Aziz Rantissi, but do not disclose...

Nov. 16, 2003 Hamas: Attack Israel, Iraq not Saudi Arabia By ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIRUT, Lebanon Khaled Mashaal, head of the Hamas' bureau in Damascus, denounced the perpetrators of last week's deadly Riyadh suicide bombings and urged attacks on Israel and the US forces instead. The Nov. 8 al-Qaida-linked attack on a residential compound in the Saudi capital killed 17 people and injured scores more. The attack, in which most of the victims were either Arabs or Muslims, angered many throughout the Middle East and was seen as a direct strike on the U.S.-allied Saudi royal family. During a speech in...